HEY GUYS!!!! Have you been feeling the MNU Spirit this week?? Cause I have! This week has been pretty crazy! Homecoming is just around the corner and the road there was long and obnoxious. This whole week has been full of events and themes all the way from “Blast from the Past,” where we dress up like a previous decade, on Monday, to “Country Swag,” where we show the whole school how good we look as cowboys and cowgirls, today; from “Twin Day,” where we match someone else, on Tuesday to “Reppin Yo TEAM,” where we wear clothes that rep our favorite team, on Thursday. I have to admit, my two favorite days were definitely Twin Day and Country Swag. On Twin Day we had a Smoovie night. This is where we got the opportunity to watch a movie together and drink smoothies (get it? smoothie + movie = Smoovie). We watched Disney’s Brave, ate popcorn, and drank smoothies until our hearts were content. And then Country Swag, which was tonight, we had a bonfire, as seen above, a carbash, and a hoedown. It was an awesome experience. Everyone in the school put there differences aside, came together to achieve a common goal, despite our problems and distractions, and accomplished that goal: to beat the living snot out of a car with a sludge hammer and burn some crap!! Then we all kicked it at the hoedown and line danced the night away. Now I can’t wait for the homecoming banquet tomorrow, and a night at Emerald City Gym and the homecoming football game Saturday (Go Neers!). Overall, this week has been awesome. This is definitely a community that really gets us all involved and having fun. Never have I felt so loved, so connected, and so at home as I do here. MNU is just that, my home, and I’m proud to be a part of it

Competition can be a crazy thing sometimes. I’m the kind of guy who loves competition, but I do not take it too seriously. So the other day Lanbarger House had a few dodgeball games in Land Gym and I see that there are a lot of other guys who love competition too…..but way too much. They take it way too seriously. There was name calling, cheating, lying, and it really just took away from the game. And that’s really all it is: a game. It’s only a game and yet people treat these games like it’s life or death. Yeah competition can be fun at times but why would you let something so petty consume you to the point of what looked like to me as hate. Danny, the Lanbarger RE, was even called a racist because there were people who couldn’t stand the idea of losing. I just thought to myself Danny? A racist? Are you serious? This is one example of how we, as humans in general, have this tendency to point the blame. We are quick to get defensive of our actions instead of just dealing with it, and then we get to this point when we messed up or we’ve fallen just a little short, it’s so easy to point the finger at others whether they are guilty or not. And its not just in sports but in anything. It’s in our school work, in sports, in friendships, and in just everyday tasks. Why is owning up to our actions so hard? Why can’t we just accept the fault? I guess this just kind of hit me: we really need to step up. We are not kids anymore. We need to step up as adults, as students, as friends, and most importantly as Christians. If we don’t step up then we can’t go anywhere. And if we don’t go anywhere we can not truly be happy. We’re called to be so much more and we can’t afford to be petty. I guess that’s just how I’ve been feeling lately and that’s what God has been speaking to me.

HEY GUYS!!! There’s something on my heart right now that I would really like to share with you all. There comes a time when our independence becomes almost…unappealing. It’s a time when your love for your family and the love for your home really comes out and you can’t help but long for them. Its a time when our pride gets pushed aside and all we want is to be at home again where there were no problems and no worries. That time has hit me sooner than I had thought, and I miss my family.

College is full of stress and full of business. Sometimes I fell like I’m ALWAYS on the go and have no time to myself to just relax. This really gives me an appreciation for the life I had back home that I took for granted. Some things I had then, that are now an entire state away, really pull on my heart strings and now I really miss them. The biggest thing I miss right now is by far my three little sisters.
I don’t know what your relationship is like with your siblings, if you have any, but I love my sisters more than anything in the world. My sisters names are Abigail, Izabel, and Porsche (10 years old, 8 years old, and 4 years old). Being without them has really shown me a lot of things I have taken for granted and really underestimated the amount of my life that they took up. We’ve always been really close but now that I’m so far away from them, I can really see how much they really meant to me. And now that they’re getting older, getting more social and having more peers in their lives it scares me knowing that their friends are impacting them more than I am. I want to show them Christ and His love but I’m afraid they won’t see that in their lives now that I’m not there. And it isn’t just my sisters that I miss but there’s a lot of things about my home that really suck to be without.

I just want you guys to know that sometimes we lose God’s gifts and forget God’s in the process of following God’s plan. And now that I’m in college, separated from my family, I can see the times God blessed me and I didn’t take notice, or I was given a gift from God I wasn’t aware of. I just pray that we, as a school, really take in the value of our families, and of God’s love, and really try not to forget the things that are important instead of getting lost in the future that isn’t even here yet. We have priorities right here and now that we cannot look past that we need to give to God and ask Him to work on, and that He works on those things through us, as Christians. That thing is my family and that’s what’s on my heart right now.

Hey Guys!! What’s up? How’s your week going? I don’t know why I’m asking you questions, you can’t respond! Anyway, this week has been stressful for me. It’s all been work, work, work, sleep, work, work, eat, work, sleep, work. Sometimes I feel like there is no time to myself or to just get away and relax. But then there’s that time of week when my stress level goes down drastically. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are the three days a week that I just stop what I’m doing and have fellowship with some friends.

Fridays I have a small group bible study with a couple of my friends, Tuesday nights I have a small group for guys, and then Wednesdays I attend Kairos. These groups are a huge part of my week. I feel like I have a little taste of my Sabbath in every one of them. Are you involved in a small group of some sort? Yes? No? Well you should be! Small groups, or even big groups, are a vital part of fellowship and really help you grow through your faith. Why should we have only one Sabbath day a week dedicated to relaxing and just resting? Why not have Sabbath moments throughout the week as well?

I urge you guys to join a small group, whether it’s one of MNU’s organized small groups or even just a small group of friends getting together and studying God’s word. Groups like Kairos are also an excellent way to just have time together and fellowship. These are all an awesome part of my college experience. Whether you are already a student at MNU or even a future Pioneer looking into joining a small group is one easy step to developing a healthy college experience, and it’s a great way to further develop your relationship with God. So just ask around about small groups or even start one with your friends. I promise you won’t regret it.

HEY GUYS!! I have come across an idea! I have officially been inspired! Last night I went to a concert in KC that really impacted me and I would like to share my joy with all you guys. So I saw For King and Country, Jason Castro, Dara Maclean, and Heavens to Betsy perform live and are all now officially on tour driving from coast to coast. Well this was pretty exciting to me for multiple reason: This is my first show I’ve seen since I’ve been here at MNU, and it was the first show of these guys’ tour (Proof of Your Love Tour) and they’re all pretty well known; Jason Castro was actually a competitor on American Idol; For King and Country and Dara Maclean are on K-Love all the time; Heavens to Betsy was a group of some amazingly musically talented guys. They all had amazing performances and had some very unique styles about each and every one of them.

Now what inspired me wasn’t the performance, it wasn’t their musical talent, and it wasn’t even necessarily the message they had shared between the songs with us. What inspired me was that here were some people who loved what they were doing; they loved worshiping God and sharing their stories with the world. This shows me that God takes what we love, He takes our hopes, our talents, He takes our dreams and our aspirations, and He makes them into something phenomenal that works for His kingdom. This is awesome to me because I know God can use me. God can take me, mold me, and make me into something awesome using nothing other than myself.

At MNU we are focusing this year on the “Kingdom Within.” That God’s kingdom is inside each and every one of us. This inspiration I found ties in with that. God’s heaven on earth is in our dreams and our hopes. So what dreams and hopes do you have? What talents and skills did God give you to use for His glory? Take what inspires you and use your talents to then inspire others. Once we do that, once we take our aspirations and give them to God and say “this is for you father,” is when we will truly become part of the Kingdom that God has for us! So don’t be afraid to be dorky sometimes, or to sing even if you don’t know how. Don’t be afraid to finally pick up that paint brush and teach yourself to paint like you’ve always said you wanted to. Just don’t be afraid to run for your dreams, because it’s through your dreams where God’s inspiration truly springs. 😛

My name is Phillip Prado and I’m a freshman here at MidAmerica Nazarene University. I’m majoring in Youth and Family Ministries but who knows what degree I will graduate with? God has a funny way of changing people’s plans doesn’t he? I guess that’s at least true for me. And MNU has already been a place of “changed plans.” I hear story after story of people who made plans for themselves and God is taking them and using them in His plan. It’s humbling seeing how little control we, as humans, actually have. That’s why I chose to go to school here at MidAmerica. I know I can fulfill my purpose for God here. He’s moving in this school and I am very proud to be a witness of that movement. I’m even more proud to be involved in that movement. Whether it’s as a Blogger, doing one of MNU’s ministerial groups, or even in just simple fellowship with my friends and class mates. I know God will use me in any way He can. God loves every single one of us and the moment we begin to truly live like that is truth will be the moment we begin to live for God. I look forward to my future here and I hope I will embrace it with open arms and live in God’s light as much as possible. My name is Phillip Prado, I’m a freshman at MNU, and if there’s one thing I really want you to know about me it’s this: God loves me, He sent his son to die for me, and I will spend the rest of my life, in every way I can, in every situation, living like that’s the truth and sharing that truth with the world.